Unsanitary Practices Are Bad

Hi, Y’all!  Welcome to KC’s Corner.  Today I’m going to tell you a personal story about an experience I had while growing up Catholic. Then we’ll talk about a few different unsanitary religious practices that unnecessarily put the faithful at risk of injury, disease, and death.

One Sunday after mass when I was in middle school, I asked my dad and stepmother about something that I saw as an inconsistency not in only what they taught me, but between what I was learning in school and what we practiced in the church. So, in school, we were learning about communicable diseases, how they spread, and how we can reduce the risk of being infected. Something I think we all learn at a very young age is to not drink after other people. Then, when we are at the age of reason (which according to Catholics is at about 7) we take our first communion, which includes sipping wine from a chalice out of which everyone else in the church also drinks. Side note: I don’t know if any of you have or have had a seven-year-old, but there is often no rhyme or reason to anything they fucking do, so I’m not sure how the Catholic church determined that 7 was the age of reason.

Age of Reason

Anyway, I asked my parents how they justified the idea that everyone drinking from the same chalice at church was safe when they’d always taught me that this is a complete no-no. My step-mother told me that I needed to have faith and that Jesus would never allow his followers to get sick when taking part in his communion. I thought about it for a minute and then said: “I’m sorry, but that’s just not how communicable diseases work.” Apparently, this was not an appropriate response and I was punished for questioning and not having faith. Thinking back, this is when my deconversion process really began.

So, let’s talk about this and some more examples from various religions.